I’m having too much fun to slow down, so never mind about the only-one-post-a-week thing. Thanks for signing on, happy Monday.
Author: Evelyn J. Willburn
More is not always better!
In seventh grade I went to see the school counselor, and she had a poster on her wall of a whole bunch of hippopotamuses all jumping into the same tiny boat. The caption read “more is not always better.” I have always remembered that image. And that’s why I’m going to just do one post […]
The life and times of three girl dogs
For a period of about ten years, we had three medium-to-large dogs. The first of these three girls to join our family was Kushtaka (accent on the last syllable).* She was the third so-named dog in Scott’s family. I heard stories of the first and got to spend some time with the second. Koosh the […]
A rose by any other name
Meet my alter-ego, the other Miss Ev: EV is short for Electric Vehicle; this little lady belongs to the local power company, and zips around town from time to time as a conversation piece and vehicle (pardon the pun) for publicity. Here’s my own car, with its personalized license plate: I do wish the state […]
Adventures in caving
Southwestern Virginia sits on top of a magnificent system of limestone caves, some of which span multiple states. When I was growing up, one of our family vacations was going to Luray Caverns for the guided tour. We saw formations called fried eggs, drapery, soda straws. . .Luray had boardwalks, spotlights, vending machines, and, way […]
Togiak blues (and reds)
The picture you see here serves a dual purpose. First, it gives you some insight into why I stopped coloring my hair. Second, it shows you what it’s like to pick berries in Southwest Alaska. This picture was taken just outside of Togiak, which is a Yup’ik community of about 800 people. As you can […]
Would you like fire with that?
For about six weeks in the summer of 1980, I worked as a cocktail waitress in the Club Candalejas, a salsa (music) bar in Hollywood, California. I had worked as a waitress before, but this was my first time in the dog-eat-dog world of a bona fide cocktail lounge. Nobody had their own station: we […]
Coffee apocalypse
When the zombie apocalypse comes, how will I get my coffee? It’s a question of concern to me. I began enjoying coffee at the then-tender age of nineteen. I worked at Clinkerdagger, Bickerstaff, and Petts, affectionately known as Clink’s, which was a theme restaurant in midtown Anchorage. One of our perks was free coffee. Having […]
For the love of cats
My cat Socks is twenty years old. I never get tired of bragging about that, probably in part because as a child I thought the average life span of a cat was two years. There was high turnover in our dynasty of farm cats, which I now understand to have been a source of stress […]
Sewing machines, past and present
When I was growing up, it was cost effective for my mother to make our dresses. I would go with her to the fabric store and make my choice. We would bring the fabric home and she would wash it and hang it on the outdoor clothesline. When I was really little I would play […]